


Honor Among Thieves

by hopeless_eccentric



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Canon Non-Binary Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Hand to Hand Combat, Heists, Nonbinary Juno Steel, Other, Unresolved Sexual Tension, alias backstory plus a little jupeter at the end, and duke, and i think that is very sexey of him, art capers, dahlia rose can step on me, duke rose is soft for his wife hours, galas because im gay, nureyev goes way too hard when planning his aliases
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:21:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25457683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeless_eccentric/pseuds/hopeless_eccentric
Summary: The lady was dressed to kill, from that sleek pink gown to the gun he held to Duke Rose’s head.“This is a real pretty dress,” the stranger spat, the lash of that barbed tongue as sweet and cool as the metal against Duke’s brow. “I’d hate to get your blood on it.”AKA Nureyev is workshopping character backstories and Juno is having none of it
Relationships: Duke Rose/Dahlia Rose, Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 24
Kudos: 173





	Honor Among Thieves

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! Hate to say this is only vaguely Roseverse but fun to write nonetheless!!
> 
> Content warnings for knives, guns, minor choking, hand to hand combat, mentions of blood, pinning one's opponent to the floor, mentions of bruises

The lady was dressed to kill, from that sleek pink gown to the gun he held to Duke Rose’s head. 

“This is a real pretty dress,” the stranger spat, the lash of that barbed tongue as sweet and cool as the metal against Duke’s brow. “I’d hate to get your blood on it.” 

“I would much rather you not stain it, then. To make a sweet lady sad is a sour offense,” Duke offered. The lady rolled his eyes, mauve lips in the loveliest snarl he had ever seen. 

“You really don’t seem concerned,” he noted. Duke shrugged. 

“Your finger’s not even on the trigger, my dear. You don’t look like a killer. An aspiring art thief, maybe, but not a killer.”

“You ever shut up?” 

Duke grinned. 

“Never. Besides, if you do truly wish me dead, I would rather prefer to spend my last moments doing what I love, rather than begging for my life,” he explained. 

“And that is?” 

“Charming pretty ladies out of their grips,” Rose beamed, yanking the stranger’s arm away from his head. His wrist crunched in protest, but he jerked the weapon away all the same. 

Blaster fire sizzled the air where his head had been moments ago. With no time to lose, he ducked as the lady prepared to fire again. Those hands, concealed within elbow length silk gloves, had been so steady pressing the weapon to his head. Duke doubted he was dealing with a bad shot. 

Rose dodged as the stranger missed once more. 

“My goodness,” he breathed. “That wall is certainly feeling your wrath today, madame.”

“You don’t sound scared,” the lady said through gritted teeth, letting out a frustrated groan as Duke slipped out of his blaster’s sights. 

“I’m not.”

Duke slid between his attacker’s staggered legs. An elbow jabbed the lady behind the knee and he buckled, though Rose had miscalculated his timing and ended up half-crushed beneath a very armed and very angry opponent. 

Well, he could take care of one of those things. 

Both hands wrenched around the lady’s silk-clad wrist, though the stranger was stronger. Even covered, Duke couldn’t have missed the way those athletic forearms flexed and bulged with muscle as he threw Rose’s hands to the side. 

This would have been more of an issue if he hadn’t also lost the gun in the process. It clattered to the floor and slid, landing by Duke’s foot. Duke gave it a solid kick for good measure. When it was done bouncing off of corners, it had come to rest by the door that was the security room’s only exit. 

“Shit,” the lady spat, his gaze trained on the weapon for long enough that Duke could hook their legs together. In one swift movement, he flipped them over, taking the stranger’s place above him. 

“So,” Duke began, bared teeth mere inches from the stranger’s sweat-slick neck. “Do you have any intentions of telling me what the hell that was about?” 

The lady’s head was tilted back in indignant defiance, giving Rose quite the view of that sharp jaw and the impossibly lovely scar that ran along it. The mark looked to be the brushstroke of a master painter, rather than the echo of an old injury. 

It was a hell of a view, especially with the lady’s triceps bared as he fought Rose’s grip on his arms. When Duke had caught sight of the lady in passing at the art museum’s gala, he had seemed the picture of grace. He was a vision in a pale pink fabric that shone like a jewel against his dark skin. For a moment, Duke wondered if color itself had been invented just to grace the goddess who walked before him. Now, with that goddess splayed out beneath him and those anointed robes pressed flush to his three piece suit, he was almost positive it had been. 

“I don’t know why you think I’d tell you,” the lady laughed, cold and clear as a winter night. Also like a winter night, it sent a chill straight down Rose’s spine. 

“You have quite the lovely voice, my dear,” Duke smiled, cursing himself for the words as soon as they left his mouth. Usually he could compartmentalize his threats and flirtation, but something about this lady and the bite of his tongue was making that very difficult. “I certainly wouldn’t complain if I heard more of it.” 

“Cut the crap,” the lady snapped. “I don’t want to hear any of this ‘dear’ bullshit. I have a name for a fucking reason.”

“Which is?” 

The stranger glared the loveliest glare that Duke had ever seen. 

“Dahlia.” 

“Dahlia,” Duke repeated, savoring the word as it played on his lips and then instantly mourning its loss, the syllables dancing away into the evening air. “A fittingly lovely name. Duke Rose, at your service.”

“Save it, lover boy,” Dahlia snarled. He bucked his hips and discarded Duke at his side. Before Rose could scramble to stand, Dahlia was straddling his hips and forcing his arms back to the floor. “Hands where I can see ‘em.” 

It was far too easy to obey that command with Dahlia’s chest heaving against his and the cruel grasp of silk-soft gloves digging bruises into his wrists. 

“You’ve already pinned my hands, I’m afraid,” Duke grumbled. 

“Do you ever shut up?” 

“Only when gagged, darling.”

Dahlia stifled a choked noise, grip going tighter on Duke’s wrists. 

“I’m starting to wish I’d brought mine,” Dahlia said through gritted teeth. 

They were far closer now. Duke wasn’t sure whether Dahlia was just trying to tighten his grip, or if they had simultaneously decided to throw caution and personal space to the wind. Rose noted their mouths were so close that even he could close the space between them with a kiss. 

He wasn’t sure why such a thought crossed his mind in the first place. He didn’t usually want to kiss people who, mere moments after holding a gun to his head and shooting at him, were pinning him to the floor of an art gallery’s security room. 

Well, unless they asked first. 

“Dahlia, dearest, I thought you wanted me to talk,” he couldn’t help but grin. 

Dahlia rolled his eyes. It might have been the prettiest thing Duke had seen all evening. Though it was certainly an annoyed expression, he couldn’t help but appreciate its intimacy. It was not an action of Dahlia the goddess at the gala, nor was it an action of Dahlia, the lady with wildfire in his eyes and a gun to Duke’s head. It was the kind of moment that felt similar to seeing someone’s face when they read or the way they stretch out when entirely relaxed. 

Here was Dahlia the person, rather than Dahlia the facade. Duke wanted nothing more than to know every part of him. 

“Fine. Do you work for the Pygmalion Gallery?” Dahlia demanded, words hot and harsh where they landed against Duke’s neck. 

“No. I’m a guest at the party. Just as much as yourself, I presume,” Duke returned, surprising himself at his composure.

He was shocked he had a shred of dignity left pinned beneath such lovely company. 

Without warning, Dahlia stood. Duke scrambled for his own footing, but a pale pink stiletto heel cozied up to his throat before he could go anywhere. 

“One push, and this goes right through your carotid,” Dahlia threatened. 

“Yes, madame.” 

“You looked a little too comfortable down there, and my arms were getting tired.” 

Duke took it as a bad sign that his eyes were too fixed on the well-muscled leg pinning his neck to the floor to bother looking for an escape route. 

“Is that a knife in your gown or are you just happy to see me?” he rasped. 

Dahlia snorted. “Don’t be an idiot. It’s two knives.” 

“A lady of taste, I see.” 

“Quit changing the subject,” Dahlia snapped, digging his heel into Duke’s neck. Duke stifled a little whimper of pain. “Who the hell do you work for if you’re not Pygmalion security?” 

“I’d tell you, Dahlia dear,” Duke began, half choked by the shoe. Even sputtering out words, that name tasted perfect in his mouth. “But your heel appears to be in my throat.” 

The shift in pressure was just enough that Duke could throw Dahlia off of him with only a scrape to the neck. He rolled away and onto his feet with the help of the nearby security desk where a guard would have sat if not for Duke’s prior schedule hacking. 

Dahlia reached past the mile high slit in his skirt and drew one knife just as Duke had drawn another from his coat. 

“If you really wish to know,” Duke began, beginning to pace across the room. Dahlia matched his stride, knife twisting in hand. They were circling like predators now, eyes dashing between hands and knives and faces as they tried to calculate the next move. “I’m here to steal the crowned jewel of the neoimpressionist gallery.” 

Dahlia paused in his step, and Duke did the same. Confusion was a new expression on his face, and even though the knife still poised in Dahlia’s hand had Duke’s name on it, he couldn’t help but find the look almost cute. 

“You’re not after that billion cred tapestry?” 

“Why would I be? All the security’s on it for this evening, giving me the perfect opportunity to strike,” Duke explained. “Why do you ask?” 

“I was expecting competition, that’s all,” Dahlia said. For a moment, Duke thought he might have seen him blush. 

“It’s quite the risky one man job. If I were you, I would be rather desperate to find a partner in crime before your window of time is up,” Duke couldn’t help but grin. 

“Yeah, right,” Dahlia laughed. Of all the music played throughout the gala, that sound had been the most beautiful of all. “No way.” 

“Are you sure?” Duke chuckled, sheathing his knife. Dahlia was a little slower to follow suit, though the blade, harsh and utilitarian in contrast to his ornate gown, disappeared behind the skirt in time. 

“You fight dirty as hell, Rose.”

“You fight dirtier,” Duke grinned. “I’d even say you take pleasure in doing so.” 

“I—“ Dahlia broke off, swallowing a long train of stuttered half-words. 

“Tell me, Dahlia,” Duke began, the name dripping off his tongue. “Do you drive your heel into the neck of every rival thief you threaten to kill?” 

“You’re a bastard,” Dahlia said, though his tone made it almost sound like a compliment. 

“And you’re low on time, so I propose we have our respective ways with the security system and part company, or we walk out of this room arm and arm and pretend to be very drunk, very lost newlyweds,” Duke offered. 

Dahlia groaned, though there was no real malice in it. Duke could tell he was struggling to hide a smile. 

“Fine. How ‘bout we steal both and split the sales?” Dahlia conceded. 

Duke reached a hand across that cavernous void between them. Dahlia took it and shook. 

It wasn’t until he felt that silk against his palm and in between his fingers that he realized how much he missed the touch smothering him mere moments earlier. With a sweep of his hand and a bow of his head, he kissed the fabric over Dahlia’s knuckles. 

“Quite the gentleman, Duke Rose,” Dahlia snorted. Duke felt something in his chest flutter at the sound of his name. 

“Always, in company as fine as this,” Duke returned. He couldn’t help but mourn at the feeling of air between his fingers as he dropped Dahlia’s hand back to his side. 

“Hell, I might consider keeping you around after all this,” Dahlia mused. 

“If you keep coming up with ideas as brilliant as this partnership, I might just have to do the same,” Duke all but beamed. 

“So what do you say? How ‘bout we go and steal ourselves a tapestry?” 

“You know, Dahlia,” Duke began. The sound of his name seemed to make Dahlia glow just a little. “I never believed what they said about honor among thieves.” 

. . . 

Juno rolled his eyes. 

“No way. There’s literally no way anybody’s going to believe that,” he groaned, while Peter Nureyev, dressed to kill in a wine red suit and corset to match, beamed as if his ‘wife’ had made quite the joke. 

“You’re too much, Dahlia!” Nureyev cried, a hand over his heart as if his chortle had caused him a genuine breathing issue. With as tight as that corset looked, Juno wouldn’t have doubted it. 

“And nobody’s even gonna ask,” Juno added, though he could barely stifle a smile at how much Nureyev seemed to be enjoying himself.

It wasn’t often they got to reuse old aliases, let alone a pair, but the situation had called for Duke and Dahlia Rose specifically. Juno couldn’t even pretend he wasn’t excited for the opportunity as well. 

“Dahlia, dearest,” Nureyev began, beckoning a socialite he seemed to recognize over. “This is Benoit Caesar. He’s an old friend who helped me on a heist back when I was a solo act.” 

Benoit Caesar, a quiet man who looked like his greatest wish was to be anywhere else, gave Juno a glance as a greeting. 

“I do not think I have met your wife,” Caesar noted, clearly hoping he might spur ‘Duke Rose’ into one of those winding, colorful tangents Juno had come to know and love. 

“This is the love of my life, Mister Dahlia Rose,” Nureyev said, flashing a grin that would make reporters and movie stars and game show hosts wilt. Juno couldn’t help the smile that crossed his face at the sound of that name. He didn’t mind being Mister Dahlia Rose, especially not the second time around. 

“Pleasure,” Juno returned, giving the man a nod. With his fidgeting, he worried even a handshake might trigger a panic attack. 

“I am just curious,” Caesar began once more. “I know you are a private man, Rose, but it feels only polite to ask this one question.” 

“Ask away,” Nureyev smiled. 

“How did you and Dahlia meet?”

**Author's Note:**

> Whew! Ngl I had way too much fun writing that
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading and make sure to smash that kudos button, leave a comment down below, and don't forget to stay awesome!!
> 
> Yell at/with me about Juno in heels on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric !!


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